1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to gamepieces, and in particular, to a multiple layer packaging arrangement which incorporates a hidden, but purchaser-accessible, retail gamepiece, the indicia formed on separate layer surfaces forming a recognizable image when the gamepiece is folded in a particular manner.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The retailing of consumer products, as for example food products, household cleaning products, beverages and the like, is highly competitive and particularly so at the retail or point of sale level. Most of such consumer products are purveyed in cans, boxes, bottles, packets, packages and like containers that incorporate, or which may readily incorporate, distinctive printed labels that conventionally and distinctively identify the nature and source of the product contained therein. Such labels are usually adhesively secured to the product containers or are part of the package containing the product. Perhaps the most familiar and common examples thereof are the wraparound type of label conventionally found on canned goods and the paste-on labels conventionally employed on bottled beverages and which usually overlie only a portion of the available container surface and flexible packaging comprising multiple plastic layers.
Due to ever growing competitive pressures, recent years have witnessed a host of promotional concepts directed to the retail sales level to induce a purchaser to select a particular product. One of the common promotional concepts so employed is the "retail game" device, wherein the purchaser of a product is given a game card or other gamepiece at the time of purchase that offers a hope of a large return, often in a sweepstakes context. One such retail game device is the "Instant Winner" type, wherein the recipient of the gamepiece can immediately determine whether she or he is a winner or not. Such winners can be rewarded at the point of sale location or can receive their winning prize only after a return of the winning gamepiece to a redemption location. One of the recognized disadvantages of such retail game concepts is the fact that the product and the game card or gamepiece are physically separate entities and normally only come together at the time of actual purchase, as by a supermarket cashier handing the purchaser the gamepiece at the time of purchase at a checkout counter. Such physical separation of the product and the gamepiece not only creates opportunities for extensive abuse through intermediate handling of the gamepiece, but effectively removes control of the particular promotion from the producer of the product. While such disadvantages can be avoided by inclusion of the gamepiece within the product container, the added complication of packaging and purchaser access thereto, to say nothing of product contamination, had rendered such approach commercially impractical.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,551,373 to Conlon provides an approach which seeks to overcome the above disadvantage. The patent discloses a label element having a main body portion adapted to be adhesively secured to a product container, and an end portion that is foldable into overlying relation with a portion of the surface of the main body portion to form a composite and essentially coplanar exposed surface adapted to contain the distinctive product and source indicia thereon. The covered area of the label body portion includes a retail gamepiece that is exposable only by removal of a least a portion of the overlying foldable end portion by the purchaser of the product, the gamepiece being separably removable from the main body portion of the label following its exposure thereon.
Although the Colon patent is an improvement over prior hidden gamepiece label configurations, the label is relatively complex and expensive to fabricate in that multiple adhesive coatings are required and a separate removable gamepiece is incorporated within the label.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,708,369 to Greig discloses a gamepiece that includes a base sheet printed on one face with a visually ascertainable pattern of indicia, and a cover sheet also printed on one face with a visually ascertainable pattern of indicia which may or may not match the pattern on the base sheet. The one face of the base sheet on at least a band including the pattern of indicia, is provided with a transparent coating of permanent adhesive, and a liner layer is facially adhered thereto. The relative attraction of the permanent adhesive for the one surface of the base sheet and the liner layer is such that any attempt to remove the liner layer will substantially disrupt the one surface, thus giving evidence of an attempt to tamper with the pattern of indicia on the base sheet. The cover sheet is temporarily facially bonded to the liner layer or base sheet in such a way as to obscure the pattern of indicia on the base sheet from view until the temporary bonding of the cover sheet to the liner layer is disrupted, e.g. by peeling or tearing it away.
The gamepiece disclosed in the Greig patent is not designed to be incorporated directly on labels or packages and in addition, is relatively expensive to fabricate.
What is thus desired is to provide a simple and relatively inexpensive technique for incorporating an essentially tamperproof gamepiece with a product label or package, the gamepiece being physically joined with the product such that a consumer must purchase the product in order to have access to the gamepiece.